by Tina Greene | Apr 15, 2016 | Lotus Wisdom, Manifesting intentions
Hello everyone! Pete Seeger always said that “harmony is when the person next to you is singing a different note.” I love the image this evokes. A group of people creating something that is more than the sum of its parts. A place where each voice has a place and each person is valued for what they have to contribute. The fact that it also describes my dream for our world is a big added bonus. I’ve just returned from a four-day gathering of creative women and girls who are committed to exploring their own gifts and how they may embody those gifts to help create a world that works for everyone. I listened in awe as the young girls spoke about their vision of the future, about how they can contribute to the change that we all know is needed, about how we can support each other in our own work. This gathering reminded me how precious each voice is. There was a time when I didn’t have a voice to add to the circle. Insecurity, fear, shame and the deep conviction that I had nothing to add kept me bound in silence. Thankfully, the voice inside me would not be silenced. It kept whispering that life wasn’t meant to be like this. That there had to be more. Sometimes those whispers turned into tears. Of longing. Of loneliness. Of outrage and anger. Finally, in in the midst of the darkest night, I started listening. The more I listened, the better I heard. The better I heard, the stronger my own...
by Tina Greene | Aug 26, 2015 | Facing Mistakes
I’m sure you’ve experienced it before. That sudden horrible realization that you’ve forgotten something really important…like, um, your best friend’s birthday. One moment you’re fine, the next it feels like the floor has opened up and swallowed you whole. The flush of shame comes over you and all you want to do is curl up into a ball and disappear…or slink off while no one notices. It sucks doesn’t it? Being hit in the gut with the realization that you messed up BIG TIME. You can apologize. You can call and text and email. But no matter how hard we try, there is no way to undo what has been done. No way to “fix it” or “make it better.” As I’m sure you’ve guessed, this happened to me recently. Yup. Me, the queen of it’s-not-possible-to-make-too-big-a-deal-over-birthdays. I forgot my best friend’s birthday. (For the second year in a row, she now tells me – god, can it get any worse?) Sure I could fall back on excuses (aka “reasons”) that may actually be true, but the stark reality is that I Messed Up. Pure and simple. I hurt a woman I love dearly, a woman who has not just walked beside me, but often carried me, literally and metaphorically, for more than 20 years. What do we do when we screw up so badly with someone we really love? First and foremost, we have to recognize that the flush of shame will pass and NOT act while we are in it. That flush – you know the heat that starts in your gut, moves often...
